Echos of the Past
by 630leosa
Summary: Harry and Ginny stir up some old memories that he'd really reather forget.  Snape's P.O.V.


He was on his way to Greenhouse Fourteen to replenish some of his potion ingredients when he saw it. It was an ordinary sight, yet he stopped dead at what he saw.

Two Gryffindors were messing around by the edge of the lake, a long-haired redheaded girl and a boy with stubbornly messy black hair. He was chasing her around a tree that she'd hidden behind. He ducked behind the tree and tackled her to the ground, tickling her until she managed to throw him off.

Snape stared at the too-familiar sight, and for a moment thought himself a sixteen-year-old boy again, watching his beloved Lily with that wretched Potter boy.

_"James, cut it out!" Lily giggled, dodging the messy dark-haired boy who was lunging at her._

_"Oh no. Now that I know you're ticklish, you're gonna get it!" He smirked, making yet another dive for her._

_Neither of them took any notice of the greasy-haired boy pretending to be working nearby. 'What does she see in Potter anyway? He's an arrogant show-off, she deserves so much better than him.'_

_"Padfoot! Little help here?" _

_"Not on your life! Lily would kick my ass worse than you ever could." The other teen called out from the grass where he was sat laughing at his best friend and his girl._

_"See, Sirius is too much of a gentleman to attack an innocent girl like me."_

_"Innocent!" James scoffed. "Since when have you been innocent?"_

_"She's not the one who has detention with Slughorn every night this week, James." A quieter boy pointed out as he looked up from his textbook where he'd been studying._

_"Aww Moony, I'd almost forgotten about that..." he frowned."Worth it, though!" He added, beaming at Sirius who was also grinning at the memory of what they'd done yesterday in Potions class._

_"Of course it was! Besides," Sirius beamed, turning back to his Prefect friend, "Dumbledore rescheduled." Siruis dropped his voice so that Lily wouldn't overhear his explanation. "Full moon this week, thought it might get suspicious if we missed one day with no explanation..."_

A loud burst of laughter brought Severus back to reality as Potter finally caught his girlfriend. Words were just about audible through the giggles "I... need... to...breathe!"

The older Gryffindor rolled over and lay next her as their laughter slowly died down.

Snape gently ran his hand over the stone pillar closest to him, making sure that he hadn't somehow fallen into his own memories from the Pensieve he'd been using earlier. This wasn't a memory. It took him a few moments to realise what was going on, then he felt himself glaring at the boy. He was too much like his father for his own good; it was easy to mistake the one for the other. Yet for some reason he still didn't walk on.

"I'll get you back for that, Harry James Potter!" The Weasley girl grinned, glaring playfully at him.

"Yeah, you probably will try, won't you?" He grinned back, closing his eyes against the bright sunshine of the day. His eyes suddenly snapped open and he jumped to his feet. "I almost forgot, I've got Charms homework to finish up. I promised Ron and Hermione..." But he didn't get the chance to explain his promise, the redhead tripped him up as he went to grab his bag and he tumbled headfirst into the lake. Severus smirked, seeing Potter get just what he deserved, but his smile faded as he remembered what had happened when James had been in this situation.

_"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?" James shouted, spitting out water as his head emerged from the lake with his usually messy hair hanging limply over his face._

_"You know what that was for, James Potter!" She snapped back at him, glaring as his best friend helped him out of the water. Pointing her wand at the two of them she continued: "Why are you always so mean to Severus? I know you had something to do with it! What did he ever do to you?"_

_"Lily we've been through this, remember what he called you!" James argued, casting a dryness spell on himself, while Sirius passed him his glasses. "What'd you push me in the bloody lake for?" James sneered removing his own wand from his pocket in case he needed to defend himself. "Why are you always so quick to blame me for everything?"_

_"You hated him even before he called me that, you've always hated Severus!" She glared at him, holding her wand threateningly close to his chest._

_"Lily, put the wand down before you do something you'll regret." The usually quiet Prefect stood between the two, wandless but with a determined look on his face that made the others fall silent. "At least until you know what happened." He added with a pointed at Lily, then her wand, sensing a fight about to break out. _

_Lilly's wand hovered for a moment before she lowered it slightly, away from Remus. He wasn't the type to lie about what his friends were up to; she'd believe it if Remus said that James was innocent._

_Lupin sighed in relief as he saw her lower her wand. _

_"Sirius is the one behind the prank in question. I heard about it from Peter and I was the one who told James." Lily's eyes widened flicking silently from James, to Sirius before returning to James. "Lily... James saved Severus's life."_

_"I was only having a bit of fun, Lily. I didn't know he'd be stupid enough to try it. And Prongs saved him anyway, so what does it matter?" Sirius added in his defence._

_"Severus is in the hospital wing." She growled, now pointing her wand at Sirius. "He almost died!"_

_"It's not like he didn't deserve it!" Sirius glared at Lily, removing his own wand from his robes. "And Moony's already given us the lecture, thank you very much!" _

_"How can you say he deserved it?" She asked, her eyes starting to fill with tears. "He and I may not be close anymore, but I'd never want anything to happen to him! ...Maybe he was right about you guys." She added the last part in a much quieter voice, but it seemed to carry for miles around them._

_"Lily..." It was James that broke the uncomfortable silence that her words had caused. _

_She shook her head and turned to walk back towards the castle, tears springing into her eyes, the green emeralds shining in the growing darkness of the coming moonless night._

_James followed her, catching her hand when he caught up to her halfway to the castle. Sirius made to follow his friend but was stopped by Moony, who simply shook his head, gave one last glance at James, and sat back down to carry on studying from his textbook. Sirius stared at the two figures halfway up to the castle, but made no move to join them, his wand still held at his side in case she attacked Prongs._

_"I really didn't know anything about what happened." James told her, softly ruffling the back of his hair with his free hand, though more out of nerves then vanity. "Padfoot – Sirius – went too far, he knows that now."_

_Lily nodded and looked up into the eyes of James Potter still holding her hand in his. _

_"Thank you." She said softly, placing an affectionate kiss on his cheek before turning back towards the castle, still holding the boy's hand. She hesitated for a moment before quickly turning and kissing him on the lips. It wasn't until she was once again running for the castle that he realised what had happened._

_He stood there for what seemed like hours watching her leave. Placing a hand on his lips where she kissed him, his face broke into a huge grin as he walked back to his friends, the darker of the two running up to meet him, high-fiving him enthusiastically on his and Lily's kiss and talking excitedly about whether this made Lily and James an official couple, his wand lying harmlessly on the ground nearby._

_No one noticed the face peering out of the window of the hospital wing, having watched the whole scene play out with a heavy heart. Lily had kissed James. And all because he'd saved his life. Severus was sure that he'd rather be dead, broken and beaten at the foot of the Whomping Willow tree, then feel the pain that pierced his heart. He curled up in bed and cried, pretending to be asleep when she came to visit him in the hospital wing, unknowingly breaking his heart as he replayed her and Potter's kiss in his mind._

"GINNY!" Harry gasped, pulling himself out of the water and ramming his glasses back on his face. He was about to shout at her for tripping him but was distracted by her giggling. "What?"

"You look like Snape with your hair down like that!"

"I... what?" Turning to look at his reflection he saw why she found it so funny. His stubborn hair was hanging towards his shoulders and looked very lank and greasy, even he started smiling at his appearance. "Well then, in that case... Ahem." He cleared his voice and did a fairly good impression of the Potions Master's voice. "Ginevra Weasley, how disappointing. Now, that'll be, lets see... ten points from Gryiffindor."

"Aww but sir..." She pouted, trying to hold back her giggles as she played along.

"Answering back as well. Better make that twenty points" Harry continued, his mothers green eyes sparkling as he spoke.

She gave him a playful shove before standing on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Ron and Hermione'll be wondering where you are. I'll see you later." She smiled, passing him his bag.

"Later," Harry grinned, heading up to the castle. "Thank you!" He called over his shoulder as she used a spell to dry him off.

"Harry Potter, what am I going to do with you?" She sighed, shaking her head as she bent down to gather her things to walk back to the castle.

She almost fell over, bumping into someone as she straightened up with her bag on her shoulder. "Oh sorry!"

"No, I'm sorry..." The familiar voice of her boyfriend smiling down at her. "I forgot something."

And with that he bent down to kiss her lips, pulling her up as he hugged her close. "I love you." he breathed, staring into her deep brown eyes as he pulled away from her.

"I love you too," she grinned back, pushing him playfully, "but you're still gonna be late!"

"Oh, snap..." He quickly turned at a run for the castle stopping only to shout back to her once more. "See you at the Quiddich field later?"

"Just go!" She laughed back, watching him trip through the doors to the castle in his hurry to meet his friends. She grinned to herself as she walked towards her meeting with Luna. "Boys..."

Snape had turned off towards the greenhouse before the boy had seen him standing there. 'He'll never know how much like Lily he is, but he is still clearly his father's son. James would've been proud of the trouble his son had caused.' And Severus Snape's heart fell, thinking of the boy's parents. If he hadn't been such a fool, would things have turned out differently? Would Lily still be alive if Harry Potter had been Harry Snape? Lily always deserved someone better than Potter, yet he owed his life to James. But no one can change the past, and now it was up to him to protect the one part of Lily that she left behind. A stubborn little boy with her emerald green eyes.


End file.
